Work Text:
WATCHER: Statement of Grian, avatar of the Vast, regarding the ritual employed in the gameshow called “Third Life”. Statement begins.
GRIAN: That’s not what I meant when I said—oh, never mind. Do you want me to explain what Third Life was, first?
WATCHER: If you’d like.
GRIAN: Alright. (clears throat) Third Life was a gameshow where a bunch of friends were brought together in a controlled arena and given three “lives”. You lose those lives by getting splattered by paint. Only people with one life remaining—people on red, because your little badge thing went from green to yellow to red—are allowed to actively try to kill people.
It’s not a real gameshow, obviously. It never aired anywhere. I don’t even think the cameras were recording half the time, they were just Eye fodder. Hang on, wait, what does this statement give you that you don’t already know?
WATCHER: Proceed with the statement.
GRIAN: (suspiciously, but with amusement) Were you—?
WATCHER: (sharply, staticky) Proceed.
GRIAN: Alright, alright. A bit touchy about how you get your food, huh?
[A PAUSE, BUT THE WATCHERS DO NOT RESPOND]
Thought so. Anyway, the important thing is that everyone invited was an avatar, or at least on the way to becoming one. We were picked at random, I think, and most of us knew each other, at least by name. None of us were that surprised when our life counter badges failed to go down at a splash of paint. They gave us swords and bows for a reason.
I thought it would be fun, when I got the invitation. I fully admit that I intended to cause problems the moment we were sealed into that space, and I did. I caused so many problems. (laughing) A few things went a little overboard, what with the Devastation chewing on one of my allies for a bit, but it wasn’t so bad.
And then…
And then I lost track of the horizon.
I don’t need to tell you how hungry the Vast is, do I? It’s so, so big, and we’re so, so tiny. As our numbers dwindled, the sky got impatient. There was all this fear… and not enough of the right kind. None of the smallness it could digest.
Something pushed me off the mountain. It could’ve been another Third Lifer, but I think it was just the wind. It pushed me, and I flew and I fell. I must’ve hit the water at some point, but I could see the clouds and feel the wind in my feathers. I looked for the horizon, but it didn’t come to me. It just… left. And I was scared.
[THE WIND PICKS UP, AUDIBLE IN THE RECORDING]
Avatars can feel their own fear, yes. It’s not a very good feeling, because it feels like it just gets scooped up out of you and leaves you a little smaller, a little less, after. Or maybe that’s just how the Falling Titan does it. Do you ever feel watched, Watchers? Does the Eye scan you top to bottom, empty you out into its library of information, everything sorted neatly in alphabetical order, never a single thought or action without scrutiny?
WATCHER: This statement is about you, not us.
GRIAN: I’ll take that as a yes.
I’ll skip the boring parts, all the lives we lost just… playing around with each other, letting our powers antagonize each other until something caught and someone died. That’s nothing new. I’m sure you’re more interested in the ritual, right? Not the Awful Deep—the one that never worked. Yeah, I was in the ocean, but that was part of the problem. The ocean’s mine, right? I mean, the Vast’s. You sail out, you see no land, and the ocean swallows you whole. But once you’re under the surface, and you fall, and you keep falling… you reach the Buried. The Crushing Deep.
It was intense. I’m used to the insignificance. I’m not used to that kind of pressure, the suffocation, the… the inability to move. I couldn’t breathe. The sky was so far. It was like I was being crushed down to nothing, and I kept thinking, what was the point, what was the point, everyone else was dead already, so why was this happening? I thought maybe there wasn’t meant to be a winner. That it was only made to be… a Future Without Us. And the whole time, I couldn’t breathe. It was cold. I was thinking, in the cold, but the ocean weighed over me, shadows far away, pressure very near.
I couldn’t stop myself from gasping. There wasn’t any air, but I had to try, and I kept choking on the water and feeling heavier and heavier…
I realized I was the fourteenth to die. Fourteen avatars. Fourteen fears. Without any of them, there would only be… nothing. Extinction.
Third Life was a ritual to birth the Terrible Change in the rift between Vast and Buried. Snuff out the last avatar, and there wouldn’t be anything left, right? I think that was how it was meant to work.
But it didn’t. The Vast swallowed me whole because it loved me, and the Buried spit me out because it hated me. Its avatar was holding me by the wrist. His pin was broken. He said—he told me, “Look, Grian. You won.”
I barely heard him. I…
No. That’s it. That’s all I have to say for your statement.
WATCHER: Statement ends.
GRIAN: Now that that’s over—you should look into getting a bigger room, it’s a bit cramped in here.
WATCHER: We will be sure to…
[A THUD, AGAINST THE TABLE; A DEEP INHALE, AND THE WHISPER OF WIND RUSHING BY]
Stop that. (distorted, in chorus) Stop doing that.
GRIAN: Hm? Oh, alright. (amused) You’re not the only one who has a hunger to feed.
WATCHER: … We liked you better when you were with us.
[WINDOWS RATTLE, SUDDENLY, UNDER A BLOW OF WIND]
GRIAN: Yeah, well… Between you lot and the Falling Titan, you guys just aren’t loud enough to compete.
[A SOUND LIKE A HEARTBEAT OR A WINGBEAT, AND THEN CURTAINS RUSTLING AS THEY SETTLE BACK INTO PLACE]
WATCHER: … Our ritual failed to reach completion. More investigation is necessary to bring forth the World Is Always Ending.